SUPERMARKET AT 78 INTERSECTION MAY BE HARD SELL

A developer planning a Latino-themed supermarket and drive-through restaurant at a key Escondido intersection must complete an extensive analysis of how the controversial project would affect the area’s traffic congestion, air quality and other environmental issues.

The City Council voted last week to require the developer, Pacific Development Partners of Santa Monica, to complete a full environmental impact report, which will cost $144,000 and take an estimated nine months.

The supermarket and drive-through would replace a long-vacant Toyota dealership at the northwest corner of state Route 78 and Broadway, which city officials call a prominent gateway because many people driving from San Marcos, Vista and Oceanside enter Escondido there. Toyota closed the dealership in 2009, six years after opening a dealership at the intersection’s southeast corner.

Council members said a comprehensive traffic analysis is necessary because the area is already congested and the new businesses are projected to bring an additional 8,500 vehicle trips per day.

Council members have also expressed other concerns about the project, saying a supermarket and fast food restaurant aren’t the best choices for a corner where the city had hoped to have office buildings, another car dealership, a “big box” retailer or even high-rise condominiums. In addition, they have criticized the jobs as relatively low-wage.

“It’s not the highest and best use,” Mayor Sam Abed said last week.

But the 3.7-acre property’s commercial zoning allows the developer to build the project if any environmental impacts can be mitigated.

Abed also said he’s warmed up to the project since it was first proposed last spring.

The supermarket, called El Super, will be high-quality and serve an area where grocery stores are scarce and many Latinos live, he said.

“It will be equivalent to Vallarta,” said Abed, referring to a high-end Latino-themed grocery store near the eastern edge of the city. Escondido, which is 49 percent Latino, is also home to a Northgate Gonzalez market on Escondido Boulevard.

El Super, a chain founded near Los Angeles 17 years ago, operates 45 stores, including in Oceanside and National City.

The name of the drive-through restaurant hasn’t been revealed. Ron Recht, a partner with Pacific Development Partners, didn’t return a phone call this week.

Abed said it was disappointing to miss an opportunity to bring high-paying jobs to that corner. But he said the city’s new general plan, a blueprint for development approved in 2012, made quality commercial acreage less scarce by rezoning more than 450 acres as “employment land.”

“This project will mean another piece of vacant land is occupied by a good tenant,” he said, noting that the defunct dealership has become an eyesore.

Councilwoman Olga Diaz said the city’s initial reluctance was misguided, comparing it to a city policy restricting where fixed-price stores can operate. The city made an exception to that policy in February when it allowed a 99 Cents Only store to take over an Old Navy.

“Do you wait for the dream to come true, or do you take what the private sector is giving you?” Diaz said. “Nobody’s banging on the door to make anything happen there. Sometimes we have to just get out of the way.”

The 3,200-square-foot restaurant would be on the corner of Broadway and Lincoln. The 43,500-square-foot El Super would be on the west side of the property.